[Common Monster: Brutal Serpent] Level 65 HP: 1,200,000 Defense: 1500 Attack: 2000 As the dense swarm of snakes appeared, Jiang Yuan immediately saw the stat bars above their heads. "Mom! So many snakes!" Girls have an innate fear of snakes. "Medic Makes Staves" screamed at the sudden appearance of the snake swarm and quickly hid behind Jiang Yuan. "Don't worry, just a bunch of common snake monsters!" Jiang Yuan reassured the healer, then raised his hand, summoning two hundred Thunder Marsh Oxen in front of him and "Medic Makes Staves." "Are you a summoner? Wow! So many summons, that looks amazing!" Seeing Jiang Yuan instantly summon hundreds of horned, cow-like creatures, the healer "Medic Makes Staves" felt her fear of snakes fade considerably, looking at him with admiration. "Calm down, I still have over nine thousand more of these summons." Jiang Yuan smiled faintly, showing off a bit, then waved his Sage's Staff, commanding the Thunder Marsh Oxen to attack the snake swarm. "Ding! Congratulations on defeating the monster Brutal Serpent, gaining 500,000 experience points!" Dozens of notification sounds rang out. The Thunder Marsh Oxen effortlessly wiped out the blocking snake swarm in no time, providing the two with two to three million experience points. "Alright, it's cleared. Let's keep going!" After eliminating the snake swarm, Jiang Yuan said to the healer beside him and continued leading the way forward. A few minutes later, the two arrived at a half-collapsed house and encountered another wave of small monsters called "Five-Colored Spiders." These "Five-Colored Spiders" had only 800,000 HP, but there were a huge number of them—about three to four times the snake swarm, totaling over a thousand. If a normal team entered this dungeon, just dealing with these thousand small monsters would take ages, and if coordination was off, they might even lose members. But Jiang Yuan wasn't flustered at all. Based on the highest-level summoning skill he currently had, each Thunder Marsh Ox had an attack power of 100,000 points, more than enough to handle these spider monsters. To boost efficiency, Jiang Yuan summoned five hundred Sand River Turtles and five hundred Thunder Marsh Oxen at once. Using the Sand River Turtles' taunt skill, he tightly grouped the spider monsters together, then had the Thunder Marsh Oxen weave a massive electric net, trapping all the spiders. "Squeak!" The dense Five-Colored Spiders were firmly caught in the electric net, and with the taunt skill affecting them, they couldn't move, letting out anxious squeaks. This turned them into live targets for Jiang Yuan's summons, only adding experience points for Jiang Yuan and "Medic Makes Staves" without causing any harm. A pungent, burnt smell spread. The female healer quickly covered her nose, frowning involuntarily with a look of disgust. "Ugh! It stinks! Let's get out of here!" The female player "Medic Makes Staves" said to Jiang Yuan while holding her nose. "Meow!" Just as the healer finished speaking, Meow Meow, who had been sitting on Jiang Yuan's shoulder, raised a paw to cover its tiny nose and let out a meow. "So you're a tsundere cat!" Seeing Meow Meow's very human-like gesture, Jiang Yuan gave it a look, but still moved forward, leading the healer away from the burnt spider corpses emitting that awful smell. After wandering through the ruins for a long time, aside from encountering wave after wave of small monsters, Jiang Yuan and the healer still hadn't found the teleportation array's exact location. However, after several waves, the healer "Medic Makes Staves" had leveled up to 61. "Weird! Where exactly is the teleportation array mentioned in the quest?" The healer "Medic Makes Staves" was getting tired. After looking around, she found a half-covered dry well by a collapsed wall and sat down on it. "Ah!" But as soon as she sat down, the seemingly sturdy well cover shattered into pieces. "Medic Makes Staves" only had time to let out a scream before falling straight into the well. "Are you okay? Hurt?" Hearing the scream, Jiang Yuan immediately went to the well's edge to check. Seeing only darkness with a faint outline of a figure, he shouted loudly into the well. After a minute with no response from below, Jiang Yuan panicked. Ignoring the potential danger, he jumped straight down. "Thud!" Upon landing, Jiang Yuan took fall damage, losing 500 HP. "You alright?" Using the faint light from above, Jiang Yuan found the healer sitting in a corner and approached. "I'm... fine." The healer "Medic Makes Staves" stood up shakily, cast a "Healing Spell" on herself to restore the HP lost from the fall. "Up ahead... is there a path?" With the dim light, the healer suddenly noticed a winding path ahead of where they stood, leading somewhere unknown, and quickly told Jiang Yuan. "Oh? Really? Let me see." Hearing this, Jiang Yuan cast a Lightning Spell into the open space ahead. "Crack!" A bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the well's interior. In that brief moment, Jiang Yuan saw that, as the healer said, there was a winding path ahead leading somewhere. Picking up a piece of wood from the well wall, Jiang Yuan cast a "Fireball Spell" precisely at the top, igniting it into a torch. "Come on, let's see where this leads." Jiang Yuan held the torch, lighting up about two square meters around him, and turned to the healer. "Yeah!" The healer "Medic Makes Staves" nodded, nervously came behind Jiang Yuan, and grabbed his clothes. "Meow!" After walking along the uneven path for a while, Meow Meow, sitting on Jiang Yuan's shoulder and silent until now, suddenly let out a sharp cry, as if warning him. "Flap flap!" Right after Meow Meow's cry, a swarm of monsters with blood-red eyes appeared above Jiang Yuan and the healer, diving toward them densely. "Ah!" The girl's timid nature surfaced again. "Medic Makes Staves" let out a high-pitched scream that nearly pierced Jiang Yuan's eardrums. "Meow!" Meow Meow leaped from Jiang Yuan's shoulder, swiping its front paws left and right, knocking one monster to the ground. Jiang Yuan crouched down, holding the torch closer to see—it was a bat! [Common Monster: Bloodthirsty Bat] Level 70 HP: 1,500,000 Defense: 2000 Attack: 3000 Seeing the bat's info, Jiang Yuan quickly summoned fifty Thunder Marsh Oxen to guard himself and the healer. Due to the terrain, he couldn't summon more, so after the Oxen disappeared, about a few dozen Bloodthirsty Bats still circled above them. "Speed up, find an open space." Jiang Yuan summoned fifty more Sand River Turtles around them, said to the healer, and quickened his pace. "Squeak!" Seeing them move, the bats above dove down. As they neared Jiang Yuan's head, the Sand River Turtles' taunt skill redirected their attacks. "Ding! Congratulations on defeating the monster Bloodthirsty Bat, gaining 800,000 experience points." Notifications rang out one after another as the last wave of bats fell to the Sand River Turtles' thick legs. The two hurried along the winding path, and soon the space ahead began to widen. Jiang Yuan stopped, extending the torch forward, and saw they had reached a large underground chamber. "This looks like a man-made cave. Not sure what it's for." Jiang Yuan looked around, voicing his guess. "Rustle!" Just then, the soft soil beneath them made an odd sound. They looked down and turned pale with fear! "Ah!" "Medic Makes Staves" screamed again as Jiang Yuan saw the soil split apart, and a pale, pus-oozing, rotting arm slowly emerged, grabbing the healer's ankle. "Snap!" Jiang Yuan cast a Lightning Spell, striking the rotting arm and knocking it away. He then grabbed the healer's hand, pulling her into his arms. "Growl..." A deep voice came from below. A twisted, highly decayed corpse slowly emerged from the ground, appearing before them. [Elite Monster: Millennia-Old Corpse] Level: 70 HP: 3,000,000 Defense: 3000 Attack: 5000 Active Skill: Rotten Mucus—enemies hit take magic damage and are slowed by 50% for 20 seconds. The info on this decayed corpse appeared in Jiang Yuan's eyes. As more holes broke open in the ground, dozens of Millennia-Old Corpses slowly crawled out. Jiang Yuan counted roughly and gasped—over a hundred! "Ugh... ah..." The corpses let out hoarse, garbled roars, twisting as they slowly moved toward Jiang Yuan and the healer, dripping green liquid that looked horrifying. "Ugh!" The stench of rotting flesh filled the air. "Medic Makes Staves" couldn't take it, leaning on Jiang Yuan's shoulder and dry heaving. "Wah... what kind of place is this! I don't want to stay in this dungeon for another second. Sorry, big shot!" After a moment, the healer, unable to vomit, said tearfully to Jiang Yuan, then before he could react, left the party! "What the hell! She ran?!" The healer's sudden departure caught Jiang Yuan off guard, leaving him stunned. Surrounded by the dense rotting corpses, Jiang Yuan felt like crying. He shouted into the empty cave, "Hey! Get back here! How can you leave me alone!"